


Soul of One, Heart of Many

by NanakiBH



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Kissing, Loyalty, M/M, Past Lives, Reincarnation, Reunions, Soulmates, Speculation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2020-05-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:21:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24043555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NanakiBH/pseuds/NanakiBH
Summary: To change the future, he had to change as well.
Relationships: Demyx/Xigbar (Kingdom Hearts), Luxu/Master of Masters (Kingdom Hearts)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 35





	Soul of One, Heart of Many

**Author's Note:**

> As always, with each new momxu fic, I feel like I get a little closer to solving the puzzle. Am I right? Probably not. lol
> 
> After playing FFX-2, I have the weird feeling that this really could be a reincarnation situation. I'm amazed by how many directions this could go in.

The two stood atop one of the tallest buildings in the city, so high it felt as though they could brush the clouds with their fingertips if they just reached out their hands. The Master stood near the edge, gazing down at one of Sora's friends as he searched the streets below, frantically moving up one street and down the next like a rat in a maze.

As interesting as it was to watch Riku bumble aimlessly, Luxu found more interest in the one standing beside him.

Although he looked like Demyx, he knew that he was the Master. There was no reason for him to doubt that it was the truth, but he couldn't keep himself from staring. They talked the same and moved the same, but the air around him had a different feeling. He was easier to approach. The walls Luxu recalled being there didn't seem to exist anymore.

It wasn't like Demyx was pretending to be someone he wasn't... It wasn't like that, but...

“It's rude to stare, you know,” the Master said suddenly. His eyes remained focused on the streets.

The sudden sound of his voice made Luxu flinch. He should've known he was paying attention. The Master's Eyes were always watching, even when he wasn't looking.

“Sorry.”

He didn't look away, though.

He wanted to ask.

But it was one of those things. Maybe he just wanted to ask so badly because he was hoping that the Master would have something different to tell him. There was a childish part of him that clung to the mystery of the Master's vanishing act even though he'd already had it figured out for a long time.

“Are you... really him?”

“Am I _him_? Who's 'him'? I'm me.”

“You know what I mean. I think I get it, but... You aren't the same person, are you? If you're the Master, then what happened to Demyx? And if you're Demyx, then... What happened to the Master?”

The Master was quiet for a moment, though surely not caught off guard by his questions.

“You're right, strictly speaking. We aren't the same. But we're both here.” Gaze slowly falling away, he placed a hand over his chest and then looked back up toward him. “I have his memories – and the memories of all the ones who came before him. Even when you knew him, he was many people. You know how it works. You saw.”

Right.

Exactly.

It was exactly the way he thought it was.

When he was young, the Master told him to stay and watch the keyblade war. When it was all over, what he saw was exactly as the Master described. He shouldn't have been surprised, but it was still shocking to witness it with his own eyes. The war brought the world to an end, but the world didn't end for long. After its ending, it all started over. It took a long time, but the world eventually returned to the way he remembered it, and then... It ended again. And it repeated like that, over and over.

He saw the world through to its end many times.

Apart from some small, uncanny differences, it was always the same. Until it wasn't. The dark master took his keyblade in hand, and Sora broke the wheel that kept their world spinning in one direction.

Even the Master was just a cog in the wheel.

Unless one artificially extended their lifespan in some way, they would never live for long enough to witness the world's new beginning. The Master had surely dimmed and faded just like he said, and then he rejoined the wheel, spinning and changing, growing more and more distant from himself until he finally became the person they called Demyx.

When they met, they didn't even recognize each other. Looking back, Luxu felt awful. He should have realized who he was, even if he'd changed.

“I see.”

It just felt strange.

Perhaps that was all it was. Just a feeling. He just needed to adjust his thinking.

The Master entered the wheel one way, and he emerged as someone different. But he could have only ever emerged as Demyx. The people who changed from one world line to the next always remained similar to the way they'd been before.

“I wanted to rest. But, in order to do that, I knew I was going to forget my past and everything I knew about how the world works. So I went to see the me who'd forgotten everything, and I made sure that I would remember everything eventually.”

It made Luxu's head hurt, trying to imagine two of them in the same place. One was enough.

“So you're the same... But you're different. But you're the same.”

The Master laughed and cheerfully waved his hands.

“See! You get it~”

The Master was dead. That was what he was saying.

He died, and then he came back. Whether or not that made him a different person was in the eye of the beholder.

Where exactly did the sense of 'self' originate? If it came from memory, then the person beside him was unquestionably the Master himself. At the same time, he was also Demyx. And yet, strictly speaking, that also meant that he was neither of them. Possessing the combined memories of multiple people, he was something new. And maybe _that_ was the real essence of the transcendent existence of the one known as the Master.

That was some heavy stuff.

“You're thinking too hard. I can tell because you get this serious look on your face.” The Master lifted a hand and poked him between the brows. “It's the same look you used to give me when you were half my size.”

“It just... feels weird for you to know things like that,” Luxu muttered, rubbing the spot on his forehead. “You get what I mean, don't you? You still seem like Demyx to me, so it's confusing.”

“Y-... Yeah.” The Master slowly crossed his arms over his chest and glanced away with an expression of uncertainty that looked unfamiliar on his face. “It all came rushing back to me. I remembered things that had happened to me in past lives, but it was like they were things that happened to someone else. It was a lot. But I understand why I didn't want to forget any of it. I wouldn't want to go back to being completely oblivious. I don't want to be manipulated anymore.”

Luxu nodded, beginning to feel like he understood. “I wouldn't want to go back to being oblivious, either. Watching Sora and his friends... It was just kind of pitiful. He walked into the jaws of destiny like a lamb to the slaughter.”

For a moment, the Master's hands tightened on his arms, but he released himself and placed his hands together behind his back. His smile looked a bit strained.

“There's an old memory I have... A long, long time ago, someone important once said that people can't choose where they're born and how they live, but they can decide how they die. This may have been the conclusion we were guiding him toward, but it was a decision Sora made on his own. Destiny had nothing to do with it.”

All they had to do was guide him along their desired path, and then Sora's pure heart took care of the rest. The plan took a long time, but it was ridiculously simple in the end. They just had to ensure that Sora would behave like his good little self.

To celebrate his achievement, he turned into a shiny trophy.

And Riku was still looking for him... The look on his face was going to be priceless.

“I'd hate to be him,” the Master said with a laugh. “I was like him, once. More than once. It never got me anywhere. Then again, it's kinda hard to go anywhere when you're a crystal, huh?”

Luxu wondered how many lives the Master had lived. He wondered if he'd lost count. It must have been an unfathomable amount.

Suddenly, the state of him didn't seem to matter. Luxu wished he could have met all of those other Masters. He understood that they were all him. They were all a little different, but they were all equally lovable to him in that obnoxiously charming way of theirs.

When the Master noticed him staring again, his smile seemed to become a little easier. His aquamarine eyes softened.

It would have been nice to have known him through all of those lives, but it wasn't like he'd missed his opportunity to meet them.

Luxu couldn't help himself. He took one more step toward him to close the distance between them and placed his arms around him, confidently pulling the Master against him.

“What now, Master?”

At their new heights, their faces were so close. It was hard to resist the urge to kiss him. The Master seemed to notice his inner struggle, but he did nothing to help him. He just raised his arms to innocently return the hug.

“I'm of more than one mind about a lot of things, but the goal's always been the same,” he said. His eyes sharpened with a look of confidence. “I don't want to fight anymore. I want our world to be at peace, but it won't be possible until we finally get rid of the darkness. We can do it this time.”

“Just tell me what to do, and I'll make it happen.”

It finally made sense, the reason why Demyx never wanted to fight. He'd resisted it whenever he could. When pressed, he hadn't been able to give an explanation for why he hated fighting so much. He wasn't weak. He knew how to handle the Heartless. So it was always a mystery. It never occurred to him that Demyx's feelings were the same as the Master's.

The only time he saw the Master wield his keyblade was when he taught them how to wield theirs.

He didn't expect him to fight.

He'd do it for him.

That was why the Master chose him as one of his apprentices, after all. The six of them would fight on his behalf.

“I wonder if Sora remembers anything,” the Master said cryptically, gently parting from him to return his attention to the city. His eyes wandered the tops of the buildings, gazing somewhere in the direction of Sora's crystallized form. “I knew him even before you did. He seems really different now. He used to be a lot more serious. I guess people _can_ change a lot...”

At first, Luxu was caught off guard by another detail the Master unexpectedly decided to share from his past, but his ears hung on his last words. His focus turned itself inside out and his thoughts faced inward. If the Master was that surprised about Sora, then Luxu wondered if the Master also thought that he'd changed.

He felt like an idiot.

What right did he have to question whether the Master was truly himself when he'd become so unrecognizable himself?

“Hey. I didn't mean it like that,” the Master said, reaching out to grasp his shoulder. He smiled as if to reassure him and gave his shoulder a squeeze. “He's not like us – he doesn't know how he used to be. He doesn't even know that he used to _be._ ”

It didn't entirely assuage his concern and guilty feelings, but Luxu felt what he was saying.

There were a miniscule number of people who had the type of knowledge that he and the Master shared. The average person was blissfully unaware of the fact that their world was experiencing an eternal Groundhog Day. They were all somehow aware of destiny, yet unaware of what it really was and why it existed.

The Master's hand slipped away.

“I wanna talk to him, but I know it wouldn't be the same. When we met, he attacked me without a second thought. I'm sure that even when he was a serious person, he wouldn't have tried to hurt me like that. Even though I didn't have my memories at the time, it was like a part of me still remembered him. I said everything I could to avoid fighting him, but he was intent on fighting me. He really... didn't remember me at all.”

“You wanna be his friend?” Luxu asked.

The Master let out a long, heavy sigh and toed the ground.

“Nah. Unless he remembers on his own, I'm not gonna waste my breath. He's got his pick of friends now.” He looked up with a new, overly bright expression glowing on his face. “Besides, I've got you! You're all I need, Xiggy~”

Luxu was honored, though he had to wonder what sort of relationship the Master had with Sora in the past. Well, whoever he'd been at the time, Sora clearly wasn't that person anymore, so that was a relief, at least. Luxu didn't feel like getting jealous because of a kid.

It must have felt like getting betrayed twice. Roxas had left them to rejoin his original self, but his original self was a face the Master also recognized...

“To think it'd end up being him...,” the Master morosely mused. “That's so mean. It's like Ava did this to spite me.”

There was no way Ava could've known. ...Probably.

The world would repeat itself, bringing new darkness and a new ending. There was always a traitor who betrayed the peace of their world, and it seemed like that person never strayed far from the Master. Either it was all thanks to the repetitious nature of the world or perhaps the darkness intended to torment him personally.

The Master didn't hate Sora. Even Luxu had to admit that it was hard to hate the kid.

He was just the one chosen by destiny. No hard feelings.

“I don't want to fight... But, if there's one thing Sora manages to remember about me, I hope he recalls how quickly I can draw my blade.”

That was a threat if Luxu had ever heard one. A grin automatically spread across his face.

The Master's technique was precise and lightning-fast. It was surely just a matter of time before Sora awoke from his crystal sleep, and, when he did, if he foolishly wagged his keyblade at the Master, Luxu hoped to be there to witness the kid's humiliating end. He didn't want to blink and miss it.

“Shall we go put Riku out of his misery?” he asked, stepping up to the edge of the building to look down. It seemed like Riku had moved out of sight, however.

The Master scooted closer and nudged his shoulder up against his, giving him a sly, cheeky look from the corners of his eyes. “Wouldn't you rather stay here for a little while? Behold the view with me? Hold haaands~?”

“Sounds romantic and indulgent.”

The Master took his hand and pulled him down to sit with him on the edge of the building.

The city was empty. It was just a dream of a possible future, but a part of Luxu he'd never give voice to wished that it could stay that way; silent and empty, just the two of them overseeing everything. But empty wasn't what the Master wanted. It was too dark there. Until they made sure that the world stopped turning by wheels of war, no world was acceptable.

Softly, the Master rested his head on his shoulder. Luxu glanced down at him. When he placed a kiss to his forehead, he received an adorable laugh in return. The Master snuggled against his shoulder, smiling faintly with a smile that still looked too fragile.

Demyx had that smile.

Even when he'd tried to rest, his soul stayed in turmoil...

“Won't take us much longer, I imagine... The goal must be in sight for you now.”

“Sure is,” the Master said. “We can't celebrate just yet. ...But we can kiss! You wanna kiss?” he asked, batting his eyelashes.

“Is this the reward for my hard work?” Luxu asked with a smirk.

“Huuuh?” He quirked an eyebrow, giving him a confused look. “No, dummy. It's cuz I love you.”

Luxu would've probably fallen right off the edge if the Master hadn't pulled him in for that kiss.


End file.
